Big Brother

Big Brother is the latest novel by Lionel Schriver, and it explores our responsibility to our overweight family members.

Now, if you are doing the Michelle Bridges 12WBT, you have probably already owned up to a weight problem, or are working to better your fitness and be the best person you can be.

But what do we do about those we love, who are in that state of denial, or are unable to take the first step towards a healthy life.

In the novel, Pandora, a mildly overweight businesswoman, sees her brother for the first time in four years. He is now several times the person he once was. On the scale from morbidly to mortally obese, he is sliding rapidly towards the dead end.

What do you do when your brother comes to visit and he can’t fit in any of your chairs, or worse, breaks the one he does sit in? When your grocery bill suddenly triples and food keeps disappearing from the pantry?

How do you deal with the “elephant in the room’’ when the metaphorical elephant is someone you love dearly, but he doesn’t want to do anything about the problem? Without giving away too much of the plot, the story centres on Pandora’s ability/inability to help him.

In Schriver’s case, the story is partly autobiographic, as her own brother died of respiratory failure at about 181 kilograms, after battling addictions including food.

The story will strike a chord with anyone who has a family member who is unhealthy and large, or who has had their own family ‘intervention’  or interference in their own health.

It opens up many issues about our responsibilities as individuals and as a society.

Should our government tax unhealthy foods, or not serve junk food to people obviously overweight? Can we force our big brothers to become the little brothers they once were?

So what do you think? Do you wish someone in your family had sat you down and forced you to think about your weight? Or do you resent it when everyone else gets asked if they want seconds for dessert, but you mysteriously are missed out?

I feel what it boils down to is that if we each took responsibility for our own health, our family and society would be spared the burden of the heart-wrenching decisions Pandora faces in Big Brother.

I would love to hear your thoughts.

And read the book, it’s a beauty.

Let's have a fat chat

 

 

 

Chewing the fat: “An information conversation, idle chit-chat’’.

 

 

The word fat has so many negative connotations, yet it gets thrown around with gay abandon (much like the word gay).

For example, the word seems to naturally pair with the word ugly – fat and ugly, fat arse, fat mamma.

If you are reading this, you probably have a sorry relationship with the word and its many, sorry uses.

That is because you are one of Michelle Bridges’ 12WBT participants, and have followed a link to get to my post.

I thought I would create a blog where we can explore what being fat means, and where we can, indeed, chew the fat, have a chat, and hopefully a light-hearted laugh.

To start the ball rolling I have reproduced some quotes about being fat,

 

“Inside some of us is a thin person struggling to get out, but they can usually be sedated with a few pieces of chocolate cake.”
- Anonymous

 

“It’s okay to be fat. So you’re fat. Just be fat and shut up about it.”
- Roseanne Barr

“Brain cells come and brain cells go but fat cells live forever!”
- Anonymous

“Thin people are beautiful but fat people are adorable!”
- Jackie Gleason


“There’s a lot more to life than how fat or thin you are.”
- Kirstie Alley

 

“When we lose twenty pounds…we may be losing the best twenty pounds we have! We may be losing the pounds that contain our genius, our humanity, our love and honesty.”
- Woody Allen

 

“If nature had intended for our skeletons to be visible it would have put them on the outside of our bodies.”
- Elmer Rice

 

“I was really tired of words like ‘plus size’, ‘round’ and ‘large’. I thought, ‘come on we’re fat’.”
- Kirstie Alley

 

 

Please, tell me, what words you use to avoid saying the words “I’m fat’’. Or words that other people have used?

 

 

Here are some examples - plump, stout, overweight, large, chubby, portly, flabby, paunchy, potbellied, beer-bellied, meaty, of ample proportions, heavyset; obese, corpulent, fleshy, gross; plus-sized, big-boned, tubby, roly-poly, well-upholstered, beefy, porky, blubbery, chunky, pudgy.

Here are some times when it's great to be called fat...
 

 

 

...when it's a part of your name, and you're busy having  a PHAT  time (PHAT = Pretty Hot and Tempting, street talk)

...when you're a FAT TIRE, and build for speed

 

...and when you're a fat cat - the type that's rolling in the dough, not the type that eats all your leftovers.

 

I look forward to hearing from you.